1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a conveying apparatus, and more particularly to a conveyor for apparatus for the thermal treatment of commodities packed in containers, such as apparatus for sterilizing or pasteurizing foodstuffs packed in tins or glass, said conveyor comprising means for conveying a flexible conveyor along a closed path of travel and carriers for containers to be treated, a unit being present along the path of travel for loading said carriers with said containers to be treated and a unit for unloading treated containers from said carriers.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In preserving industries it is known to continuously convey a packed product to be treated through a space secluded from ambient air, a pronounced difference in temperature and/or pressure and/or degree of moisture being maintained within said space, with respect to said ambient air, so as to increase the keeping qualities of the respective treated product. This is especially the case with foodstuffs or medicines.
In the prior art apparatus, many embodiments of which have been used, the respective containers are mostly fed one by one or groupwise to carriers, so as to subsequently subjected to the relative thermal treatment, whilst a discharge of treated containers takes place correspondingly.
The difficulty with an apparatus of this type is that its productive capacity is rather limited, due to the timeconsuming manner in which containers are loaded and unloaded.